Topic Tuesday // Let’s talk about systemic change: The Victorian Royal Commission // Tues 17th August, 7:00-8.30PM AEST

[BigFeelsClub]

Q3 @BigFeelsClub: How do services look different when we (the service users) run them? (continued)

With the initiative I run, The Big Feels Club, people tell us we’re a lot more honest than most mental health stuff they’ve come across. We don’t claim to have ‘the answer’.

For us, sometimes ‘the answer’ is finding other people asking the same big questions.

And I think that’s because we are trying to make the thing we wished existed for ourselves. When you’ve been asking for help for ten years, and still feel sad or scared a bunch of the time, you don’t need more advice. You probably already know what helps, but you also know how hard it is to keep it up every damn day.

So sure, seek out help in the usual places if it’s useful, but you also need to know you’re not alone. You need to know you still belong on earth, even when you feel like crap.

To me that’s the bit that peer-run agencies can do really well: helping you feel like you still belong on earth, no matter how you’re feeling. This is the bit that other parts of the system really struggle to do. And it’s such an important bit!

[Daisydreamer]

Hi @Kermit, great question- support for the peer workforce is essential 🙂 @BigFeelsClub will talk more about this in one of the questions we pre-prepared, so keep an eye out for that response

[Mex]

i don't know of you have to be crazy to want to be a peer worker, but it seems to be a pre requisite

[Daisydreamer]

@Mex every person will have different experiences of mental health concerns and distress and that's what makes the workforce powerful.

Peer work roles in the mental health sector do have a requirement of identifying with an experience of mental health concerns or caring for a family member with mental health concerns (carer peer worker). Those experiences are core to the work that peers do 🙂

[chibam]

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@Former-Member wrote:

Thanks @chibam, the Royal Commission certainly described a system that will take a broader view of mental health and wellbeing to encompass the social determinants of mental health, beyond just diagnosis. I don't have a blanket answer to your question - but to give you a sense of the broadened access recommended by the Commission, here's an extract from the chapter on responding to trauma (see p. 380 Volume 2):

Consumers will be supported by specialist trauma practitioners through the development of a referral policy which will endeavour to support all consumers impacted by trauma, regardless of:

•age and personal background

•mental health diagnosis (meaning that people experiencing subsyndromal conditions will be eligible for statewide trauma services)

•chronic, worsening or episodic mental health

•the type or source of trauma experienced

•whether or not the trauma was recent

•whether or not the trauma occurred in Victoria (for example, Victorians who were exposed to trauma overseas, or refugees and asylum seekers who have settled in Victoria and have pre-arrival exposure to trauma will be eligible for statewide trauma services

I'll keep digging and see if I can find anything further 

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Thanks for all this effort, @Former-Member !

As you note, this is all about responding to trauma, which of course is important. It leaves me wondering though about people who may not have had any trauma, yet still need the services.

[MDT]

Good evening all

The Hams checking in

I have had a rare day today. Not up for much plus I don't much about what happened in Victoria with this Commission. But it sounds relevant and good.

I only have a few points I want to get off my chest about these things which I hope are relevant in regards to service providers.

1) I have had some pretty woeful experiences with service providers and specialists. Sometimes they have belittled my experiences, others have dismissed topics I have wanted to speak about outrightly. I think this experience may turn other off seeking help altogether
2) suicide is a leading cause of death for youth in Australia. I think there needs to be more research into this as both a psychological experience from the perspective of an individual but also a societal level - why are young people suiciding? But actually I think it's an issue effecting any age bracket so perhaps its not just age related.
3) online forums like sane have been a fantastic resource for people like me and I think it's probably one of the best forms of therapy for people. The same is true for group therapy in person, however i have found group therapy in person can be a bit pedestrian and parental.
4) Looks matter far more than they should in today's world and mental health treatment providers need to grasp this concept. Just because someone looks like they have it together or can talk the talk DOESN'T mean they do. But I believe this may be the fault of the medical model. In my previous role I viewed a coronial inquest into a suicide. Something that stuck out was that sometimes people can really be in desperate need of help and they are turned away because they've almost perfected putting on a brave face.

I'll be around to read and follow

[BigFeelsClub]

While we're on the topic of lived experience leadership, a shout out to one of the long-time luminaries of the consumer movement in NZ (we're I'm from originally). Mary O'Hagan.

Mary was New Zealand’s first ‘openly mad’ Mental Health Commissioner (her words!). You can watch a very cool 3-minute documentary about her that I helped make here. Watch it if only for her iconic kiwi accent?? She spent much of her 20s in and out of psych wards, and went on to be a major leader in NZ's system, and advise the UN on mental health.

As Commissioner, Mary's work was a big part of how we got peer support on the map as a professional discipline in NZ, which in turn is the only reason I even started working in mental health in the first place (and is such a big part of my own way of making meaning out of the hardest stuff I've experienced). And her whole presence, and her story, was such an inspiration when I was a young person finding my way in this intensely personal work.

Mary's just one example, who had a big impact on me. Just like NZ, we have some amazing consumer leaders here in Vic and around Australia, who've been working tirelessly over decades. To the extent that we're getting anywhere with this Commission and what comes next, we're standing on their shoulders. 

[cloudcore]

"Imagine if when you’re in a real bad spot, hospital wasn’t your only option. If instead you could check yourself into a residential service that’s homely, inviting, and most importantly that’s run by people who’ve been through their own similar crises." - @BigFeelsClub 

I am very keen to see an alternative to hospitalisation here in NSW. I have never been hospitalised, but I have been close and I recall feeling extremely fearful of visiting an emergency department in my more difficult days. I had friends I could rely on instead at the time, but I knew that was an unfair responsibility placed on them and they often couldn't understand what I was going through. I would have greatly appreciated having the option to seek out a welcoming space to speak to another person who has similar experiences. I know that I personally needed empathy and reassurance more than I needed a 24hour watch and busy nurse in those moments. 

I look forward to having more peer-run agencies, I think they're so important!

[Mex]

Hopefully the system will change so we don't have iatrogenic trauma anymore, hopefully these experiences will dissapear?

[Daisydreamer]

Q4: The Royal Commission recommendations prioritises peer support at all levels. What does “peer support everywhere” look and feel like?